Day 28, Tue, March 13: Jeremiah 31.27-37
As a new Christian I learnt slabs of the bible, particularly the Hebrew Scriptures, by singing choruses that were often taken verbatim from the Psalms and Prophets. Here's one of my favourites, from Isaiah 51.11:
"Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.
They shall obtain
gladness and joy,
and sorrow and mourning
shall flee away.
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads."
I had no idea during my mid-teens in the '70s that this was about the return from exile of the Jews to Jerusalem over 2,500 years ago. It was enough that the chorus was happy, and someone played the guitar tolerably well.
In the middle of the book of Jeremiah, beginning in Chapter 30, is an extended poem which is about the same event. It's just as joyous. Stanza after stanza begins with the words "Hear the word of the Lord" or, less frequently, "Thus says the Lord". The New Revised Standard Version which I'm using has a couple of section headings which sum up the tone and meaning of different parts of the poem very well. Chapter 30 is given the heading "Restoration Promised for Israel and Judah", and Chapter 31rejoices under "The Joyful Return of the Exiles".
At the very heart of it all, 31.31-34, is a prose section in which God through Jeremiah promises to institute a new covenant:
"31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."
I've already written posts in this blog about covenants, solemn, binding agreements between kings and their subjects that gave rights, responsibilities and power to both parties. The bible records a number of covenants between King God and God's special people Israel, but this one in Jeremiah, framed and stimulated by the prediction of the Jews' return from Babylon, is special. It predicts that God's law will become so internalised among God's people that it will be as though God had written it on their hearts. All will know God. Since people began to follow Jesus Christ not only as Messiah but as Son of God, and to understand that God the Holy Spirit would not only be active from time to time, but would constantly indwell God's followers they have regarded these verses as prophetically pointing to a new and special relationship between God as Trinity and God's people!
Biblical prophecy typically worked on a "1-2 punch". When the proximal promise was fulfilled that was a reassurance that the distal one would be too. The promise of return from exile was a kind of down payment on the more distant promise, the coming of Christ and the new Covenant. I wonder whether that is not also a source of hope. The resurrection of Christ was the first instance of not only God's New Covenant but God's New Creation too. Since I trust that Christ's resurrection occurred I have hope that even in the midst of climate change and all else that threatens this world God's new creation, the rejoining of heaven and earth, will also occur.
"Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.
They shall obtain
gladness and joy,
and sorrow and mourning
shall flee away.
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and come with singing unto Zion,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads."
I had no idea during my mid-teens in the '70s that this was about the return from exile of the Jews to Jerusalem over 2,500 years ago. It was enough that the chorus was happy, and someone played the guitar tolerably well.
In the middle of the book of Jeremiah, beginning in Chapter 30, is an extended poem which is about the same event. It's just as joyous. Stanza after stanza begins with the words "Hear the word of the Lord" or, less frequently, "Thus says the Lord". The New Revised Standard Version which I'm using has a couple of section headings which sum up the tone and meaning of different parts of the poem very well. Chapter 30 is given the heading "Restoration Promised for Israel and Judah", and Chapter 31rejoices under "The Joyful Return of the Exiles".
At the very heart of it all, 31.31-34, is a prose section in which God through Jeremiah promises to institute a new covenant:
"31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."
I've already written posts in this blog about covenants, solemn, binding agreements between kings and their subjects that gave rights, responsibilities and power to both parties. The bible records a number of covenants between King God and God's special people Israel, but this one in Jeremiah, framed and stimulated by the prediction of the Jews' return from Babylon, is special. It predicts that God's law will become so internalised among God's people that it will be as though God had written it on their hearts. All will know God. Since people began to follow Jesus Christ not only as Messiah but as Son of God, and to understand that God the Holy Spirit would not only be active from time to time, but would constantly indwell God's followers they have regarded these verses as prophetically pointing to a new and special relationship between God as Trinity and God's people!
Biblical prophecy typically worked on a "1-2 punch". When the proximal promise was fulfilled that was a reassurance that the distal one would be too. The promise of return from exile was a kind of down payment on the more distant promise, the coming of Christ and the new Covenant. I wonder whether that is not also a source of hope. The resurrection of Christ was the first instance of not only God's New Covenant but God's New Creation too. Since I trust that Christ's resurrection occurred I have hope that even in the midst of climate change and all else that threatens this world God's new creation, the rejoining of heaven and earth, will also occur.
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